Former touring pro and current commentator/ATP board member Justin Gimelstob sat down with Rafael Nadal at Vina Del Mar to discusses the Spaniard’s comeback. The two-part interview which also aired on Tennis Channel was offered a lot of insight into Nadal’s state of mind.

Nadal addresses his knee injury, what he did for fun during his recovery and his expectations in this return, plus much more including why he does what he does with those water bottles!

Nadal continues his comeback tonight in the Acapulco final against friend and countryman David Ferrer.

Rafa is all over Ferrer’s second serve; he’s won ONE of 12. Meanwhile Rafa is winning over 50% of his second serves. That’s one of the key stats, imo. I thought that perhaps Rafa would revamp his serve while he was away/practicing. Perhaps he has? His fans would know better than me.

He tried to implement the Novak Djokovic playbook against Rafa i.e. hit BH DTL, hoping to extract short BH from Rafa, instead of going with his bread and butter inside-out FH. He failed miserably because Rafa’s backhand was firing tonight, he was not dropping it short.

He only started making headway when he reverted to his OWN gameplan, but it was too late…..

“There were all sorts of questions about Nadal heading into the Almagro match. All of them were answered. There were more questions about Nadal heading into this match, the first time the King of Clay would play a top 5 opponent, on said opponent’s favorite surface. And they were all answered in the most emphatic of ways. Rafael Nadal Parera was extremely impressive today – there wasn’t a facet of his game that didn’t stand out, really. He served well, returned well, blasted his FH well, hit his BH EXTREMELY well, and didn’t let Ferrer off the hook for one second. It was a ruthless performance by someone who wasn’t sure himself if he could reach these heights so soon after a 7 month absence.